up all night to get lucky
by xIrelandx
Summary: Apollo has an embarrassing, although not too shocking, secret. I blame shane, owain, pinky, and banana. Also imagineapollo. I don't even know how to explain what this is or why it's happening, but there you go.


It was a silly habit he'd had since he was a kid, one he'd learned to control over the years in order to keep the maximum amount of teasing at a minimum. He didn't think his friends nowadays (could he even really call his boss and his boss's daughter his friends?) would torture him too much over it, but still. It was a little, well... unexpected. He might be excessively loud when arguing his point, or upset, or energized, but the fact still remained that everyone knew him as anxious and reserved. This bizarre little habit of his was neither.

Well, okay, singing along to music and dancing by yourself isn't that weird, but the fact that it's actually a pretty common occurrence didn't make Apollo feel any less self-concious. That's why, no matter how much he wanted to, he always kept himself straight-laced. It was bad enough he was babyfaced - he didn't have to act like a child too. And yet...

Everyone else was out of the office now and wouldn't be back for a while. Trucy left the radio on "in case Polly gets lonely!" So...

It started with humming. Apollo wasn't even really aware that he was doing it, he only started to notice when his eyes closed and he could feel his torso moving rhythmically.

No one was there to see his cheeks heat up, but they did anyway. "Damnit, Apollo, knock it off," he told himself. He was working. He couldn't afford to get distracted like -

"We've... come too far... to give up... who we are..." His hips tried to shake. He felt like he was losing control of his body. Trying to reclaim some shred of dignity, Apollo crossed his legs...but it didn't help. Now his chair was just awkwardly tilting, unable to decide whether to fall over or stay put on the ground under the pressure of his body's inability to cope. And even though he really, really didn't want to... Apollo found himself singing along. "So lets... raise the bar... and our cups... to the stars!"

Apollo had two choices ahead of him: either he could try and get work accomplished as he was, and very probably fail spectacularly, or he could try and figure out where Trucy hid the damn thing and turn it off.

He opted for choice B. Gritting his teeth to try and keep himself from singing any more, Apollo pushed himself up from the chair by the palms of his hands. He tensed his muscles to keep himself from dancing, but his mind felt manic and overwhelmed with lyrics. To make matters worse, he couldn't tell which side of the room the sound was coming from. So it must be the center, he reasoned. Apollo stepped gingerly over a heap of magical equipment Trucy left lying in front of the coffee table and dug through the newspaper and magazines littering the small table. Normally the mess wouldn't bother him - he wasn't exactly Mr. Neat and Organized - but he could feel his mind losing the battle with his body. He check under the table, under both couches - nothing. He stood back up from his awkward crouch, rubbing the back of his neck.

Oh God, oh no, he was - "The present has no ribbon," Shit. "Your gift keeps on givin'," The look on his face must have been priceless - half singing, half groaning. Half enjoying himself, half wincing in pain. "What is this I'm feelin'?" I wish I knew. "If you wanna leave, I'm with it."

Apollo couldn't see the harm in giving up just this once. No one was here, and he could find the radio and turn it off when the song finished, because clearly that wasn't going to happen now. So he tried to let his body relax, his head nodding to the beat of the music. It was easier than he'd imagined - after so much time spent fighting the urge, he was expecting more resistence from somewhere. He wasn't a particularly good dancer, or at least he'd never thought so. He didn't really do dances or clubs, and whenever Trucy dragged him to a concert he was the awkward fly on the wall.

"We've... come too far... to give up... who we are...

"So let's... raise the bar... and our cups... to the stars!"

Apollo was fairly certain he wouldn't feel the need to yell so much if he could just do this more often. It was entirely ridiculous - he must have looked entirely ridiculous, and he certainly felt that way, but for the moment, he just didn't care.

"I'm sure Klavier Gavin would love to see this." Apollo tripped backward over Trucy's pile of magical equipment at the sound of Mr. Wright's voice. He managed to cover his face before he hit the ground, but he doubted that it mattered. His whole body had a terrible tendency to light up when he was really embarrassed about something. "You okay, Apollo?" He could feel Mr. Wright tugging at his shoulder, trying to get him to sit up. "You didn't hit your head, did you?"

"Please just leave me to die here in misery," Apollo grumbled.

Phoenix laughed. "What? What's so embarrassing?"

"Damnit," Apollo snapped. "You know why I'm embarrassed!"

"Well, it's not like Klavier's the one who walked in -"

"That's not the point!" Apollo blinked furiously, catching glimpses of Mr. Wright from behind his spread fingers. The other man appeared to be frowning at him, confused.

"So... What is the point?"

"It's - I'm embarrassed!"

Mr. Wright blinked slowly. "Because I caught you dancing?"

"Y-yes!" He felt a hand leave his shoulder.

"Apollo. Look at me." Apollo's hands slipped down his face so that he could look over his fingertips at his boss. When the man didn't continue, Apollo started to read his body movements - he was swaying ever so slightly, head nodding, fingers tapping on the coffee table. Apollo only smiled in reply, and Phoenix started to sing along.

"She's up all night 'til the sun -"

"I'm up all night to get some - "

"She's up all night in good fun -"

"We're up all night to get lucky!"

It was weird - No, actually, it should have been weird, sitting on the floor in the office, singing to some ridiculous song on a hidden radio, half embarrassed and half happier than he'd ever been. But Apollo just felt normal, and safe, because Mr. Wright wasn't laughing at him or chiding him for not acting his age. And if possible, Mr. Wright was even worse at dancing than he was.

At the song's close, Phoenix moved some of Trucy's magical equipment off the person-sawing box she used as furniture, revealing the radio. He turned the noise down considerably, and smirked at Apollo. "I just came back up to get my wallet. She never moves anything, because she'd forget where it was."

"I don't know how she manages to find anything in the first place," Apollo replied.

Phoenix shook his head. "Controlled chaos, maybe? Either way, it's always here if you want to turn it off. Or on."

Apollo rubbed at the back of his head. "Th - Thanks, Mr. Wright."

Wright shrugged. "It's no problem. Just - next time, invite me to your dance party."

Apollo blushed, and Mr. Wright laughed in return as he left the office once again.


End file.
